Look only at the overall deficit and at the past three years, and America's fiscal deterioration hardly seems reckless.The medium-term picture is a different matter.
Until they started to play hardball in this way, Mr Obama had been deplorably insouciant about the medium-term picture, repeatedly failing in his budgets and his state-of-the-union speeches to offer any path to a sustainable deficit.
But they still think the medium-term picture looks solid.
The Central Bank has $45 billion in reserves, 14 times what the federal government owes to creditors in 2013.That said, Argentina's medium-term debt picture looks increasingly cloudy.
"That's not the big picture, the big picture is where interest rates go in the medium term, because if I am taking out a mortgage... and if I am thinking of investing in a new plant, if I'm thinking about taking on new people, that's what I care about".
Studying those changes alone gives a cleaner picture of the effect of tax reform.In the short to medium term, tax changes have large effects.
Medium term: very little.
Or maybe the medium term.
Note the phrase "medium term".
